Al Gore Expounds

Sorry to delve into the political realm, (just a smallish delving :) but this little paragraph jumped out at me this morning....

Make no mistake, full-motion video is what makes television such a powerful medium. Our brains - like the brains of all vertebrates - are hard-wired to immediately notice sudden movement in our field of vision. We not only notice, we are compelled to look. When our evolutionary predecessors gathered on the African savanna a million years ago and the leaves next to them moved, the ones who didn't look are not our ancestors. The ones who did look passed on to us the genetic trait that neuroscientists call "the establishing reflex." And that is the brain syndrome activated by television continuously - sometimes as frequently as once per second. That is the reason why the industry phrase, "glue eyeballs to the screen," is actually more than a glib and idle boast. It is also a major part of the reason why Americans watch the TV screen an average of four and a half hours a day.

This quote is taken from Al Gore's address to a media conference in New York, yesterday. While he was speaking to what he sees as a lessening of the public forum, or opportunity for people to participate in the process of democracy, the reference to evolution tickled my fancy. (full text, here)

Another thing I find amusing is the subtitle of Darwin's famous book, which is conveniently left off of most references...."The Origin of the Species by Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."

So, here we have a stalwart of the Democratic Party, (said party long claiming to be the only one caring about minorities) trumpeting a theory put forth by a man who, it would seem, believed some races to be inferior to others. Am I the only one who thinks that odd?

Just a coupla more million years, and we'll find out which political party survives....

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